“We’ve been going in circles for severaldays,” she said, thinking out loud. She scanned the map. “Not thatthat’s surprising given this chicken scratch.”
“Watch it, kid,” another man saidgruffly.
“They tell you where on this thing you weresupposed to go?” she asked Eamon.
“Hey, Daisy. You best show some respect,” theman started.
Eamon cut him off with a gesture. Aiming afrown at her, he took the map back and scanned it. He pointed attheir destination.
Shea took the map back and stared at itthoughtfully. It wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever seen, but itcertainly hadn’t been done by anybody who cared aboutprecision.
She looked up at the sky. Before they didanything else, they needed to get out of this canyon.
“Might be a good idea to get out of thecanyons,” she told Eamon. “If we head to high ground, it’ll beeasier to get our bearings.”
He was silent for a moment. Shea waited.Either he trusted her and her abilities or not.
The others didn’t. They saw her apparentyouth and equated it with inexperience. Didn’t matter as long asEamon trusted enough to let her get them out of this kill zone.
“You think you can do this?” he askedher.
She lifted one shoulder. “Better at guidingthan I am at beast killing.”
One side of his mouth quirked. “Guess we’llsee.”
She restrained the urge to smile back andsaid nonchalantly, “Guess so.”
All humor dropped from his face as he lookedat the others. “Well, you heard him. Head back to the horses.Night’s not far off.”
Chapter Nine
“Whoever made this map should have their pensand ink confiscated before being dropped in the middle of nowherewith no supplies. Then we’d see whether they thought they did athorough job,” Shea muttered looking from said map into thedistance.
None of the landmarks matched. Details weremissing. Important details. The kind that could mean the differencebetween life and death.
Near as she could tell they were somewhere tothe southwest of the encampment. She thought they were only aboutseven days ride, but given how lost Vale had gotten them, theycould be closer.
“What’re you complaining about?” Eamon asked,joining her as she plotted, or attempted to plot, a route torendezvous with the rest of the company.
“This.” She held up the map and shook it.“What do they expect people to do with this garbage? Certainly notnavigate. I mean half this shit isn’t even on here. Like thatmountain or that canyon we just came from. The stuff they say ishere, isn’t. According to this, we should have passed a river a fewmiles back. I didn’t see anything resembling a river or astreambed. Did you? Nothing. Nothing was there.”
“Thought you had this. Are you sure you’renot just lost?” Eamon asked skeptically.
She shot him a nasty look before continuing,“I’ve seen some pretty shoddy maps before but nothing as half-assedas this.”
Eamon shrugged and rested a hand on hissword’s pommel while scanning the terrain. “They do the best theycan, but they’re limited by the intel they get from the field. Mostscouts can read a map okay, but they can’t describe the terrainwell enough for the cartographers to draw an accurate record.”
Then they should get their asses into thefield and do their bloody job.
She yearned for her own detailed maps backhome. Not that they would do much good here. She was further souththan she’d ever been and had never mapped this area. If she had,she wouldn’t be having problems.
“Are you telling me you can’t do it?” Heturned to motion one of the others. “If so, I’ll have someone elsetake over.”
Shea’s head shot up. She glared at him, herpride stung. “Did I say I couldn’t do it?”
“That’s what it sounded like to me.”
“Well, that’s not what I said. I can find myway anywhere. This shitty little map is just an annoyance, that’sall.” She glared at the man joining them.
